It would be fair to call Apple's Mac Pro the black sheep of the company — in the last few years, the professionally-focused computer has only received one minor spec bump — but now it sounds like it'll be going away altogether in Europe. However, it's not for the reasons you might expect: according to 9to5Mac, the Mac Pro will be discontinued on March 1st because the current model does not meet a new European regulatory standard. While the computer will still be available outside of Europe, and excess stock of the model can still be sold off, no new shipments of the Mac Pro as it is currently configured will be able to occur.

As of March 1, 2013, Apple will no longer sell Mac Pro in EU, EU candidate and EFTA countries because these systems are not compliant with Amendment 1 of regulation IEC 60950-1, Second Edition which becomes effective on this date. Apple resellers can continue to sell any remaining inventory of Mac Pro after March 1.Apple will take final orders for Mac Pro from resellers up until February 18th for shipment before March 1, 2013.Countries outside of the EU are not impacted and Mac Pro will continue to be available in those areas.

IEC 60950-1 is a fairly standard set of electronic safety requirements, and its not clear yet how the Mac Pro violates the new standards. Of course, that doesn't preclude Apple from revamping the Mac Pro's internals to meet this new regulation — after all, we just learned yesterday that Apple is making a minor component change to the current Apple TV. There's also the chance that Apple could use this occasion to introduce a fully-refreshed version of the Mac Pro. However, given the lack of attention the company has given its professional line of machines — and the company's focus on its "post-PC" lineup of devices — there's no telling if or when this refresh would happen. Apple did say that it planned to update the Mac Pro sometime this year, and the upcoming shipment ban seems as good a time to do so as any. We've reached out to Apple to confirm this news and will update this post with any new information we hear.

Update: We can now confirm that the Mac Pro will be discontinued as of March 1st — resellers are able to continue selling the computer past that date, but no new shipments of the current Mac Pro will go out in Europe. Given the plans for a Mac Pro refresh later this year, as originally reported by The New York Times last summer, it seems Apple decided to wait for that rather than make minor changes to the Mac Pro to meet these new regulatory requirements.

Well doesn't that just go to show the 'i pay more for better equipment' argument is right out the window.
Mac equipment is just about on par or even below (In terms of meeting basic law requirements) much cheaper PC equipment, pretty hilarious!

Well doesn't that just go to show the 'i pay more for better equipment' argument is right out the window.Mac equipment is just about on par or even below (In terms of meeting basic law requirements) much cheaper PC equipment, pretty hilarious!

It's unlikely that breaching this law says anything about the quality of the Mac Pro. I'm not sure how you're reaching that conclusion.

That's like saying no car that goes faster than 70mph in the UK is any good because the maximum speed you can lawfully go in a car is 70mph...

It's unlikely that breaching this law says anything about the quality of the Mac Pro. I'm not sure how you're reaching that conclusion.

That's like saying no car that goes faster than 70mph in the UK is any good because the maximum speed you can lawfully go in a car is 70mph...

No it's not. EU IEC laws exist for various reasons, mostly health and safety reasons.http://webstore.iec....{ed2.0}en_d.pdfThis is about mac pros NOT meeting the legal safety laws, so yes, it does say something about their quality.

even if it is just in the EU right now, I can see Apple eventually discontinuing the entire Pro line of macs... they did that to the xserve a few years ago, I see the Mac Pro next, they already left the low end laptop market and replaced that with the Macbook air... now your choices are becoming severly limited...

No it's not. EU IEC laws exist for various reasons, mostly health and safety reasons.http://webstore.iec....d2.0%7Den_d.pdfThis is about mac pros NOT meeting the legal safety laws, so yes, it does say something about their quality.

No. It says something about their not meeting legal safety laws, not about their quality.

No. It says something about their not meeting legal safety laws, not about their quality.

The ammendments have been out for many years before a date of being passed through was set - that's how it works with these laws, you get companies and scientists commenting on possible ideas, then on if they should be passed through and when, it was agreed in 2010 that these amendments would be passed through, if apple hasn't bothered to apply something as univerally known or basic as this, what else are they not bothering to do? One bad thing usually means there's more bad things, ignoring upcoming legislation is a sign of very bad workmanship and quality.

They have zero datacenter presence now as a result. (not legally allowed to run OSX Server in a VM outside of a mac hardware product)

Then they completely screwed up Final Cut Pro and that ****ed off lots of professional film makers. The leading reality show production company Bunim/Murray was one of the many companies that called apple out on the problems and they switched to Avid's solutions. They also needed upgrades for Xserve RAID but apple discontinued that as well. So companies like them turned to other solutions. http://arstechnica.c....pple-for-avid/

This is the main thing that really bothers me about apple. Those customers made apple what they are today.... those are the ones that stuck with them thru the bad times and kept them afloat... then they totally crapped on them.__________________

even if it is just in the EU right now, I can see Apple eventually discontinuing the entire Pro line of macs... they did that to the xserve a few years ago, I see the Mac Pro next, they already left the low end laptop market and replaced that with the Macbook air... now your choices are becoming severly limited...

Apple has stated they're working on a new Mac Pro that will come out in 2013.

Apple doesn't care about what you and I want and/or need as customers. They don't listen to anybody, much less their customers. They do what they want, how they want, when they want. Getting rid of CD ROM units on the iMacs and Laptops line was a stupid idea to say the least. Whether some people like it or not, we still need CD ROM units. Now anyone who buys a new fancy iMac or Apple laptop has to buy an external CDROM or Blu-Ray unit if they want to burn CDs or Blu-Ray. How stupid is that? But you know what's even more amazing? They cut out the media drive to reduce cost and size but the price of the iMacs and Macbooks didn't get any lower!!!!!!....So what was the point of "reducing cost" then if they are not going to pass the lower cost to the customers by offering the Macs at a lower price now that the media device is gone?

Apple doesn't care about what you and I want and/or need as customers. They don't listen to anybody, much less their customers. They do what they want, how they want, when they want. Getting rid of CD ROM units on the iMacs and Laptops line was a stupid idea to say the least. Whether some people like it or not, we still need CD ROM units. Now anyone who buys a new fancy iMac or Apple laptop has to buy an external CDROM or Blu-Ray unit if they want to burn CDs or Blu-Ray. How stupid is that? But you know what's even more amazing? They cut out the media drive to reduce cost and size but the price of the iMacs and Macbooks didn't get any lower!!!!!!....So what was the point of "reducing cost" then if they are not going to pass the lower cost to the customers by offering the Macs at a lower price now that the media device is gone?

LOL

Where did they say they were removing drives to cut costs? Removing the drive was to make it thinner, lighter, increase battery life and not waste space, for a component lots of people rarely even use, that could be used for something else. You don't see a decrease in cost because it's more expensive to engineer thinner machines

There are plenty of Ultrabooks from other brands that don't have optical drives and can be plenty expensive as well, not just Apple. The Apple machines are still very expensive, but that's not something new.